Just kidding.  We know what holiday is coming up.  We also know that you’re likely to procrastinate and wait till the last minute to buy something.  And you know what?  It’s ok!  We feel you!  And we’ve got you covered.  We’ll have a totally awesome pop-up store with Kumquat Cupcakery Feb. 11-14 in Greenpoint, and you can stop by then.  Details on hours and specials to follow.

But for those of you planners-ahead, take note: we will be debuting two new bars at the Flea tomorrow (and Sunday).  They are special for Valentine’s Day, they are awesome, and we will stop making them after February 14th.  For a whole year.  They will be up on the store next week; but they’ll be at the Flea tomorrow.  I repeat: tomorrow.

Now, there’s a reason I’m being very clear about this: there are two of us.  We will make as much Valentine’s Day candy as we possibly can.  But I predict, with my uncanny psychic abilities, that supplies will go fast and furious (I’ll do my best to keep y’all up-to-the-minute on Twitter).  Which is why I’m telling you now: we’ll have the Valentine’s bars at the Flea tomorrow.  You should come buy some.

But I’m getting ahead of myself – I haven’t even told you what they are yet!  Well, Chocolate Doom is basically what it sounds like: total chocolate overload, in the best possible doom-y way.  It has a crumbly salted cocoa sablé cookie base, a layer of creamy milk chocolate ganache, and a light whipped white chocolate ganache on top of that.  Covered in dark chocolate, of course.

My Spicy Valentine is more or less my personal idea of candy nirvana: a tangy, slow-burning passion fruit/cayenne caramel with crisped rice, also dipped in dark chocolate.  It’s insane, and we’ll be sampling some of it this weekend.  Seriously.

Seriously.

You should come by.

…Okay, that’s enough with the seriousness and the Valentine’s whatnot.  (Until next weekend, of course.)  In the meantime, I hear that there’s some kind of sporting event coming up…polo semi-finals?  Cricket championship?  I can’t quite remember.  But I do hear that people who enjoy sports also enjoy beer.  And pretzels.  And potato chips.  Get the picture?  We have a special gift package for you on the site – you know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Don’t let the cold keep you away – we’ll be tucked downstairs in the vault with samples and smiles!  And limited-edition Valentine’s Day sweets.

Seriously.

We’ve been wanting to do this for a while – we’ve heard your pleas! – but we haven’t been able to.  No one was around to help, we couldn’t work out a schedule, et cetera et cetera.  But everything’s fallen into place like the tumblers in a big gnarly dungeon lock, and we will now be at the Flea both Saturdays AND Sundays at One Hanson!  The Evil Plan marches on!

So what does that mean for you, dear customer?  Well, first of all, more candy.  DOUBLE the candy.  And we have a new caramel this week (if you subscribe to the newsletter, you’re already in the know): Preserved Lemon/Olive Oil.  I love preserved lemons in pretty much anything; I had them for the first time just a couple of years ago, and the combination of bright citrus, saltiness, and pucker factor more or less blew my mind.  I’d always wanted to do a truffle involving them for years, but never quite got around to it.

Then fate intervened in the form of our friend and Fatty Crab chef extraordinaire Corwin (son of Roni-Sue, erstwhile employer and eternal mentor) — who hooked us up with some preserved lemon powder, made in-house by him and his team of magical ninja-wizards.  Seriously amazing stuff.  Jen came up with the olive oil flavor pairing, and boom.  Legend.

I happen to think it’s incredible.  We’re still in beta-testing and have a reeeeally limited amount of them this weekend, so first come first serve.  Try ‘em and let us know what you think!  (They’ll likely be involved in a secret Valentine’s Day project; more of which next week…)

Oh yeah, speaking of  — we’re teaming up with the queen of the mini-cupcake, Keavy of Kumquat Cupcakery, to do a pop-up store in Greenpoint’s Kill Devil Hill!  How freakin’ excited are you?!  Have you *seen* how gorgeous her Valentine’s Day gift boxes are?  Do you even *know* the cool stuff we’ll have for your Valentine?  (Think passion fruit, chocolate, hibiscus, chocolate, cayenne, blood orange…chocolate…)

You know we won’t hold out on you.  All shall be revealed next week.  Abide until then, sweet followers — we’re looking forward to seeing you this weekend!

Well, first of all, it’s a candy bar.

Second of all, it features peanut butter.

Crunchy peanut butter.

…and third of all, there’s MARSHMALLOW. (one of my favorite things ever.)

Now, we don’t know how y’all feel about the ol’ Fluffernutter, but we happen to be huge fans.  This bad boy is along the same lines, but without all the processed whatnot: a tender shortbread cookie, generous layer of crunchy organic peanut butter, and fluffy handmade marshmallow to top it all off.  It’s dipped in milk chocolate and it’s freakin’ delicious.

Aside from that, we’ll have loads of caramels – Beer & Pretzels (and Slurtles!), Sea Salt, Chocolate Sea Salt, Chocolate-Black Truffle and Stout-Gingerbread.  Our last batch of Hard Apple Cider caramels of the season will be on sale tomorrow too, so step lightly!

Also on the table will be our Barley-Tea and Honey Lollipops, Pecan-Brown Sugar Brittle, Honeycomb, and standard candy bars – Snacker, Lime-In-The-Coconut and the famous King.  Come hungry!

We also want to let you all know that we’ll be donating 10% of our sales tomorrow to Heart To Heart International, to help aid victims of the Haiti earthquake.  This also extends to our online store, tomorrow through next Friday.  Thanks in advance for all your support.

We’re so excited to see you all tomorrow!  Here’s to 2010.

Wow.  Just…wow.

First of all, thank you all times a million for supporting us so overwhelmingly throughout the holidays, and thinking of us to gift to your friends, family, and other assorted loved ones.  Never in a million years did we think we’d sell out of EVERYTHING – you guys are all the jam.  To the max.

Secondly, happy new year to everyone!  We’re just getting back on our feet from the holidays, and man oh man do we have some fun stuff in store.  But you don’t get to hear about it yet.  For now, we’ll have all your old favorites at the Flea at One Hanson starting next Saturday, January 16th – look for what to expect sometime next week.

In case you missed it, we got a barrage of really cool press in the past month-and-a-bit!  Quick recap:

-Edible Brooklyn featured us in their Notable Edibles for December;

-we did a fun interview with Serious Eats about our favorite places to go and things to nosh;

-OH MY FREAKING GOD THE NEW YORK TIMES MENTIONED US IN THE DINING CALENDAR;

-UrbanDaddy helped us get rid of all our Slurtles with their last-minute gift guide;

-we fared well as the rookies in NYMag/Grub Street’s roundup of chocolate gifts (we love you, Michael Laiskonis!);

and, last but absolutely not least,

-Food Curated’s Liza de Guia shot a lovely video starring our candy (and yours truly).

…unbelievable.  We can’t wait to see what this year has in store.  Looking forward to seeing y’all at the Flea next weekend!

Just kidding!  It only moves inside…and for us, to Manhattan!  Starting the day after Thanksgiving, you can find us at the Flea’s Gifted Holiday Market — residing at the old Tower Records space on E4th and Lafayette in the grand old borough of Manhattan.  Following that, we’ll be there every week, Wednesday thru Sunday, fulfilling all your wildest candy dreams — we’ll have gift packaging!  We’ll have new stuff!  Best of all, we’ll have heat!

More news on that to come.  Meantimes, an enormous, soul-filling THANK YOU to our amazing customers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, friends and family, and various other pals who have made the first 7 months of our existence utterly rewarding and unbelievable.  You might think we’re just saying it, but we really do have serious gangsta love in our hearts for you.  See you back outside in the spring!

PS. don’t forget the New Amsterdam Market on Sunday: coffee tastings, a new Bread Pavilion, and — as always — a squillion other awesome things.  We’ll be there!

As you may also know, the beer is made by the renowned Brooklyn Brewery.

What you probably don’t know is that we only JUST got around to telling them about it.  We were apprehensive — would they be excited about the candy?  Mad that we didn’t tell them before?  Bored by our lengthy account of how all these crazy sweets came into existence?

Lucky us — they’re super cool!  I had the privilege of seeing all the big shiny machines, meeting some of the mucho nice employees, and wandering in (be still, my heart) the massive warehouse — before hauling cases upon cases of delicious Brooklyn Brown Ale, East India Pale Ale, and just-back-in-season Chocolate Stout back to the kitchen.  ALL of which — cross my heart — got reduced to go into delicious caramels for you folk.  It hurts sometimes, being such givers…but that’s how we roll.

Henceforth, we’re adding Brooklyn’s awesome, old-school logo to our products featuring their fantastic potions — in order to give them due credit for the flavor we’ve been poaching from them thus far.  We have some other packaging overhauls going on in the meantime as well, but those are more for us; we’re evolving aesthetically, and feel that a schmancier look is in order.

Don’t worry.  We won’t get all snooty on you.

As for the Flea tomorrow, the now-famed Slurtles will be making their triumphant return!  In case you’ve been hiding under a candy rock, these are our Drunken Turtles — featuring our Brooklyn Brown Ale/IPA caramel and dark chocolate poured over bar-appropriate snacks, and topped with dark chocolate.  We have Pretzel and Potato Chip varieties, both delicious in their own special ways; we encourage you to try both and let us know which you like better.

Your humble blogger will be out of town for a few days on chocolate-related business — but look for online store-related news in the coming weeks.  Get excited!

However — such unabashed scare tactics are clearly producing results.  To wit: three (count em!) new locations are carrying Liddabit Sweets!

BEDFORD CHEESE SHOP – with almost our entire line in the store, you can’t go wrong at this Williamsburg mainstay.  They also happen to have a huge selection of incredible cheeses (a weakness of ours) and other tasty tidbits.  A one-stop shop, indeed!

SPUYTEN DUYVIL GROCERY – into beer?  Like the bar of the same name?  Then you’re missing out if you haven’t visited this cool little gem hiding in the Williamsburg mini-mall.  All the obscure, artisan beer and cider you could ever want (they source our Doc’s Draft for the Hard Cider Caramels), with an old-school, unpretentious vibe.

NORTHERN SPY FOOD CO. – okay, so they’re not technically open yet.  But word on the street is Nov. 10 is the big day – and here we make our Manhattan debut!  Coffee, snacks, sit-down, take-away and groceries — they’ve got it all.  Plus they’re super nice.  Head down to the East Village next week and show ‘em some love!

…we also just re-upped at our other locations: Marlow & Daughters, Greene Grape Provisions, and Formaggio Kitchen (in MA).  So have at it!  Just be nice to the people behind the counter(s).  We’re pretty sure they reserve the right to not serve you if you get rowdy.